revolution1
by minmb82
Summary: revolution1


**Chapter 1**

_Brista, 5 Kedaa, 4405, Faey Orthodox Calendar_

_ Friday, 18 April 2019 Terran Standard Calendar_

_ Brista, 5 Kedaa, year 1330 of the 97__th__ Generation, Karinne Historical Reference Calendar_

_Foxwood East, Karsa, Karis_

It was going to be a very busy day.

Sitting at the piano on a breezy, sunny morning, Jason Augustus Fox Shaddale Karinne was more or less just wasting time waiting, amusing himself as the others prepared for a long trip, about as long a trip could be without leaving the planet. They were going to Hirsa today, and as soon as everyone was ready to leave, they'd be heading there and preparing the CBIM facility there to receive its core crystal. The crystal was in the final stages of the tempering process, and if they timed it right, the core crystal would arrive just as they finished the last of the preparations. This was the last of the CBIMs, and there was only one crystal left in the CB facility in the Shimmer Dome, a CBMOM crystal that would be ready for installation in 12 days. The installation team would be going from Hirsa straight to Kosigi, where they would begin the refit process on the _Aegis_ to convert the command ship to a CBMOM. They had no plans to install CBMOMs on any other command ship, but there would be two more CBMOMs.

He'd authorized the construction of two more—the _last_ two—fleet flagships just yesterday afternoon, part of the naval expansion plan that Navii and Juma had developed. The Karinne Navy would reorganize into four major fleets, each one headed by a fleet flagship, each one responsible for a "cardinal direction" quadrant of the universe with Karis acting as the center point; north, south, east, west; or to use their actual denotations, alpha, beta, gamma, delta. Assets from other fleets would certainly be pulled as necessary, but each fleet would be responsible for operations within its quadrant. Those duties would primarily be exploration, acting as research vessels when not needed for military duties, where they would conduct general research, exploration, and mapping, and would refer anything of strong scientific interest to the KES so they could send a scout ship to study the subject more thoroughly.

As a result, every ship in the fleet, including frigates, would be adding a new Science Division with science officers akin to Spock from _Star Trek_. The sole duty of these science officers would be to analyze data collected by the ship and make recommendations to the KES for future research locations, sending all their data to the KES for Cyrsi to organize, analyze, and then pass on to the Academy once she was sure it held no highly sensitive information. The number of these officers would vary by ship, from only one on a frigate to 170 on a fleet flagship, and they would be true _science_ officers. Most of them would be scientists, from botanists to astrophysicists, who had enlisted in the KMS and would serve as full military officers on board their ships. Since the KMS would be assuming a less militaristic role after the buildup, Jason fully intended to get use as much use as possible out of the very expensive ships the house spent a lot of money to build and man. KMS ships weren't going to just loll around Kosigi, waiting for something to happen. They'd be out there exploring territory the KES had already moved through, exploring what the KES didn't or exploring the lower-interest locations the KES couldn't afford to devote research assets to investigate.

In effect, it turned the entire Karinne Navy into an arm of the KES during peacetime, and it was a situation that both Juma and Navii did not mind at all. It kept the Navy busy, it gave crews experience operating far from Karis as they explored new galaxies, and it would expand their knowledge. But, during war time, the roles would reverse, and the military-viable assets of the KES would become an arm of the Karinne Navy, transferred to combat duty to assist the Navy until hostilities ended.

There were going to be other ships added to the KES…_big ones_. The captured super-ships would be absolutely perfect for the KES, and they already had plans on the board to refit 250 of them to serve as giant mobile bases for KES operations. Where Vanguard class scout ships would enter a galaxy, conduct initial exploration, and then move on, the super-ship bases would move into a galaxy and stay there, acting as the hub for all research and exploration within that galaxy. That required Jason to more or less go back on his promise to not take any Syndicate assets and ask for some of the ships from other empires, but he was wise to only ask those empires that would give them to him. He mainly got them from Dahnai, Kreel, Krirara, Enva, Grayhawk, Grran, Magran, Master Mo, and the smaller empires that really had no use for the hundreds of super-ships they received as the spoils of war from capturing Sha Ra's fleet. They were going to sell them for scrap metal anyway, and Jason managed to either outright get them as gifts or pay their value in scrap. But in the end, he got all 500 ships he wanted.

Only half of them would go to the KES. The other half would be refitted for service in the KMS, but primarily as support ships. The CCM had proved that they weren't viable front line combat vessels, but they were perfect in a support role, like a carrier was. Those moon-sized ships were perfect mobile bases of operation for campaigns, capable of transporting tens of thousands of troops and tons and tons of military hardware and equipment.

Sha Ra's flagship would become the first of those ships. The Karinnes did own that ship, and he'd decided not to give it to the Academy for research. He sent the Academy a different ship, the largest of the six ships the Karinnes had claimed when the Syndicate fleet's assets were divvied up among the Confederation, and that gigantic vessel was currently in orbit around planet eight in the system, being refitted to serve as a KMS vessel.

That would take 43 months, according to Cynna's schedule, and the refit would involve three major operations: replacing the fusion plant with a series of singularity plants spread through the ship to remove that glaring weakness, gutting the engines and installing translation gravometric engines and translight drives, and ripping out the Syndicate's computers and installing biogenic computers in their places. Everything else, they would leave in place if at all possible.

Power wise, the most important refit of all was yanking out that fusion plant and the weakness it represented and going to an aggregate power system using 23 different singularity plants located in strategic positions throughout the ship. Combined, they'd have nearly double the power output of the fusion plant used by the Syndicate, more than enough to power everything they planned to install in it, and would have more than enough power to handle the translight drive they were designing for it. Most importantly, those plants would power the GRAF cannons that would be installed on the ships, the number of which would depend on the size of the ship. Sha Ra's flagship would have 18 GRAF cannons installed on it in locations that would allow the ship to be able to fire on any target in any direction with at least one cannon within 26 seconds of the target being selected. The type they were installing in the ship were the same design used on Kosigi, which had at least some aiming ability. The cannons used in ships could not be aimed independently, the ship itself had to turn to align the cannon with the target, but the super-ship was more than big enough for them to use the much larger version that included aiming systems. They still couldn't move the beam in too much of an angle away from the barrel, but that was what installing multiple cannons on the ship was for.

Propulsion wise, that was going to be the biggest headache. The drive that Cybi and Cyra were designing for the super-ship was going to be absolutely massive, taking up nearly 32% of the ship's internal volume—which was a major step up from the 88% the original engines took up—and would cost an absolute bloody fucking _fortune_ to build. Not only that, they'd have to disassemble at least some of the original jump engines and cart them out piece by piece, then gut the core of the ship and redesign the whole thing for a translight drive. The rest of the engines would be removed over time, if only to get the mass they represented off the ship, on a schedule that would take 10 years. The space holding the engines would be converted to serve other purposes, from giant research labs to mega-farms to cavernous cargo bays to recreational space for the crew. But it had to be done. The ship was useless to them if it didn't have a translight drive, because it was too big for it to fit in any Stargate they had…he wasn't even sure they could build a Stargate big enough for it. Gate Paragon was half the size of that ship.

It boggled his mind a little bit that they were designing a jump engine that would jump something the size of a _moon_. It almost made him curious if they could install a translight drive on _Karis_ and jump the entire planet somewhere.

Computer wise, they'd gotten off relatively easy. The modular design of the ship meant that it wouldn't take a CBMOM or CBIM to run it, but it would take 217 Mark III mainframes to do the job, all of them controlled by a Mark IV, the most powerful biogenic computer the Karinnes had that wasn't a CB unit. Jason didn't want sentient CB units in any ship that was not built from scratch by the Karinnes, he saw it as too much of a security risk. And besides, the mainframes were just sitting in warehouses collecting dust, so he saw nothing wrong with finding a use for them. The Mark IVs would have to be built, more or less custom built for the ship into which they would be installed, but they had nearly five hundred Mark IIIs in storage.

There would be a little more refitting, and that was mainly with the equipment. Syndicate equipment was inferior to Karinne technology, so they'd be replacing the equipment that mattered and leaving the non-critical systems alone, at least at first. As it broke down or came to the end of its service life, it would be replaced with Karinne technology. Over a few dozen years, eventually the entire ship would slowly be converted over to Karinne technology. They'd get as much use out of the Syndicate systems as they could, then replace them with Karinne tech when they broke down. Unneeded equipment would simply be unhooked and left in the walls as decorations while others would be actively used, at least once Myleena and Siyhaa perfected the system MRDD had made for Gen's Marauder, interfacing biogenic computers with Syndicate tech with an eye on ensuring that the Syndicate tech couldn't be used as a back door into the biogenic network, giving attackers access to the system. Siyhaa was the one most responsible for that, and to do the job, she'd taught herself Syndicate computer architecture and their programming language. With her designing the system, the leftover Syndicate equipment in the ships, systems like climate control, the intercom system, and farm management, would be usable for the KMS and also would not be a security risk.

Seriously, getting Siyhaa into 3D was one of the best things they ever did. She was an absolute god when it came to computers, any kind of computer.

They wouldn't see any of the super-ships enter active service for four years, but when they did, they would dramatically expand both the KMS and the KES' ability to do their jobs.

He paused in his song, feeling a bit…well, a bit cheap. The endolimbs worked perfectly, and he had the same manual dexterity he'd had with his organic arms, the limiters in the control circuitry tuned to match his original scores so they felt entirely natural. But, he could turn those limiters off, which increased his manual dexterity by nearly 30%...and since he was a long-time piano player more than skilled enough to be considered a master of the instrument, he had some major manual dexterity already. He had the limiters off at the moment, testing his playing ability without them, which was why it felt a bit like cheating to play. The fact that the control circuitry in his arms were biogenic meant he could merge to the arms, and when he did that, he had control of them far beyond even the non-limited manual dexterity the arms could provide. If not for the need to move his shoulders manually, he could have played far beyond his usual skill, playing with his mind rather than his hands. And he didn't entirely like it. It was like he was cheating, but what was more, it felt like a betrayal of everything his mother had taught him. He couldn't remember her face, but he remembered her hands, and he remembered everything she had taught him. The piano and the ability to play it was what connected him to her, and it felt like he was insulting that memory by playing any other way but the way she taught him.

That was…a lifetime ago. Maybe even more than a lifetime, given that she died when he was very young. All he could remember of her outside of the piano were misty fragments, mostly the sound of her voice, and the only image of her he could remember was her standing in the doorway kissing his father goodbye when he was leaving for a deployment. But he couldn't remember what she was wearing, or even what color her hair was, just this faint memory of her standing with her back to him kissing his father goodbye. What made that memory so poignant for him was that it was one of the last memories he had of her, and it was probably why it had stuck with him. That had been the last time his father had seen her alive. She would die in a car crash just a few days afterward, while his father was on a deployment in the Middle East. She had died coming to get him from school, and what he remembered most was standing at the curb waiting for her, waiting…waiting….

Waiting.

He put his elbows on the top of the piano and leaned his chin against his hands, trying to pierce the veil and remember more than just a vague figure. What color was her hair? Brunette? It wasn't blond, he got his blond hair from his father. He could never remember once ever hearing her speak to him in English, or speaking English at all. It was like every memory of her speaking English had faded, leaving only the sound of her voice in the musical language of French, which she always spoke as if she were singing her thoughts. Those memories were why he was so dead set on teaching French to his own children. All of the younger ones that weren't already fluent would be by their sixth birthday, because it was a core part of Jason's identity, where his older kids were already fluent. The language was as much a part of him as English and Faey were.

It was her hands. Those supple hands, dancing over the keys on the piano, mesmerizing him and making him want to learn to play like her, that was what he remembered most.

He'd considered the idea of having Cybi search the Terran internet for pictures of her. There had to be some, she was a professional concert pianist, and he'd be very surprised if there wasn't a promo picture or headshot somewhere. Sometimes, he was on the verge of asking, but then he'd wonder if he _needed_ to know what she looked like. That it might change his memory of her somehow. That to see her without remembering her would be like looking at a stranger. Or maybe he was afraid that seeing her would be a constant reminder of the very painful memories of what happened immediately after she died. She'd already done that for her father, digging up his military portraits, which were a tradition of sorts in the Air Force. Everyone had an official portrait photo, it was part of basic training for enlisted, and a yearly event for pilots, who had their pictures on the wall of their squadron HQ as part of Air Force tradition. Cybi had pulled all nine portrait photos of his father from the Air Force archives. They showed how he had aged at the end, from the young, cocky-looking Second Lieutenant that had just graduated from OCS and earned his "butter bars" to the graying, pale, haunted man he had become just before resigning his commission and moving back to Maine with his son. The progression of the pictures was very disjointed, where he looked young and spry in eight of them, and then just one year later, he looked like he'd aged ten years and there was a haunted melancholy in his eyes that made the picture hard for people to view.

If one knew the history of his family, it was easy to know when his mother had died by the pictures of his father.

He gave a sigh and tried to think of more positive things, like his family. He was getting the edges of something of an argument between Rann and Jyslin over what he was wearing on the trip, given it would be night and a quite chilly in Hirsa by the time they got there. Hirsa was on the other side of the planet, so the early morning here was late evening there. It was late spring here—though Karsa didn't really have seasons thanks to its subtropical climate—which meant it was late autumn in Hirsa. The Sayona Mountains would have their snowcaps by now, so no doubt the city would have quite a panoramic view from the higher hills.

Hirsa was similar to San Francisco on Terra in that it was on the coast, built by a large bay with a very narrow inlet, and most of the city was built on some very hilly terrain. Only the part of the city immediately abutting the bay was anywhere near flat, with the rest of it built on a series of tall hills and ridges that got higher and higher and more and more rugged as one left the coastline. No part of Hirga was entirely flat, not even the coastal plain, but Hirsa was almost built in defiance of the terrain, as if the original Karinnes decided a city had to be _right there_, topography be damned. Granted, the lack of need for roads or streets made it easy to build a city on terrain like that, but it did mean that the city lacked many of the parks and sidewalks of other Karis cities. But what it did have were bridges. There was a vast network of bridges that connected the buildings together over the challenging ground, which almost made it look like the buildings were tied together with thousands of ropes when approached from a distance. There were plazas and parks built on platforms between the buildings, between, above, and below walkways and mass transit rails, with some near the ground and some hundreds of shakra in the air. That made Hirsa probably the most vertical city on Karis, where the ground was barely used at all, remained a thick temperate rain forest which was grown around the buildings after they were constructed, and almost all pedestrian and vehicular traffic was elevated well over the rugged hills. In Hirsa more than any other city, a person really needed a hovercar to easily get around. It was the third largest city on Karis by area, but had the smallest population of the major cities, which meant that the city itself was very spacious, with lots of nature between the buildings.

Needless to say, Hirsa was probably also the most challenging and potentially dangerous city on Karis in which to drive a hovercar. All those bridges ascending and descending created winding aerial routes through the city where it was easy to hit something else and created tons of blind spots for unwary drivers.

All in all, Hirsa was probably Jason's favorite city on Karis from an aesthetic point of view. It was unique, the only city on Karis built that way, and given the city was built just on the edge of the west line of the Sayona Mountains, the vast mountain range that dominated the entire continent, it meant that the city's buildings had the backdrop of those majestic, snowcapped peaks.

The west line of the Sayona were the _lower_ mountains in the range, which didn't have snowcaps all year round, but were still high enough to have no vegetation on their peaks. The east line, which ran right through the center of the continent, was similar to the Himalayas. They were high, rocky, treacherous mountains that clawed their way towards the sky, so high that the air was too thin to breathe at that altitude, which made the center of the continent all but uninhabitable without support equipment like biodomes. Only the western side of the continent had any terraforming done, and that was mainly around Hirsa, transforming the region back into the temperate rain forest it was before the planet was destroyed.

The eastern side of the continent wouldn't require much terraforming. The interior of the eastern side of the continent was originally a desert, the largest desert on Karis, but it was a cold desert like the Gobi rather than a hot desert like the Sahara. The Sayonas blocked the rainfall that moved from west to east over the continent, forming the wet rain forests on the western coast and the bone dry climate on the eastern interior. The eastern coast of Hirga wasn't desert, but it was classified as semi-arid, with the climate getting dryer and dryer as one moved north. The planet's ice cap locked the northern edge of the continent in permanent ice and snow, since Hirga's landmass extended almost all the way to the pole. Nearly a third of the continent was under the permanent ice pack.

Hirga was more like Maine than any other part of Karis, and part of him still lamented that he didn't build his house there. It was a cool or cold climate of rugged terrain, of rolling hills and moraines and fjords, with the northern marches of the continent covered in ice and with tons of newly formed glaciers…at least newly formed from a geological sense. The original glaciers had mostly melted away from the bombing that destroyed the planet, and had only had about 1,300 years to reform.

Hirga was the most rugged continent on Karis, and those that lived there were just as rugged as the land. Since it was a cold place, the reptilian races and the Shio hated it, but the Jobodi, Birkons, Saffra, Tevarr, and Ubutu in the house had flocked there, the Ubutu building a new small city on the permanent ice pack in the style of their home planet. The southern reaches of the continent also housed quite a few Faey and Terrans that preferred a cooler climate. But the one thing that united most residents of Hirga was a much more independent and self-reliant attitude. Hirga was a rugged place for rugged people, those that enjoyed taking on the challenge that nature could provide, and many of the continent's residents didn't live in cities. They lived in smaller towns and villages, or lived in isolated homesteads far from the rest of civilization.

From the sound of it, Jyslin won the skirmish with her son, sending him back to his room to get a heavier coat, and the guards were assembling on the deck outside for the trip. Since several members of the Dukal family were going, Aya was sending twenty guards to keep an eye on them, nearly half of the detachment. That was because Rann wasn't the only child going. Shya was going, naturally, but Aria, Zach, Aran, Danelle, and Siyara were also going. Aran wanted to go because of his scientific interest, Zach wanted to go because Aran was going, Aria wanted to go because she didn't like being left behind, and Danelle and Siyara wanted to go because Myleena was going. He was happy to have them along, because it was their chance to learn something about the CBIMs, and their chance to meet one in the first moments of its life.

The name of the last CBIM had already been chosen, Cyma if female, Cyman if male.

_All of you had better hurry, we have to leave!_ Aya's sending rippled across the three houses that formed the core of the strip, Jason's house, Tim's house, and Myleena's house. _Danelle, Siyara, come over to Daddy Jason's house._

_ We're on the way right now, Aya,_ Danelle answered.

_I'm on the way downstairs, Aya,_ Aria called.

_Jason, are you ready?_

_ Ready to go, just piddling around til my lazy slacker children get their act together._

_ Bite me, Dad,_ Shya sent, which made him chuckle.

Eventually everyone was ready, and they boarded a KP-330 to take them to Hirsa. Aura was piloting it, and since it was Jason, there was no co-pilot because he sat up in the cockpit, acting as the co-pilot. They discussed Aura's rather big decision as they flew on a high sub-orbital arc that would send them nearly into space, then come back down at Hirsa. _You're sure this is what you want?_ he asked, looking over at her.

_After the last few months, yes. I can do what Symone does, love, I can pilot a fighter from a merge pod,_ she answered. _I've gotten the ratings I need, and I'm ready to take the fighter pilot's exam._

_ Joining the KMS as active duty rather than a reservist isn't a whim decision, Aura,_ he warned. _Even Symone understands that it's a _commitment_. You can't just decide you don't like it and go back to the reserves. I won't let her do it, I won't let you do it. You'll be enlisting for at least four years of active duty, and you _will_ serve those four years._

_ I entirely understand what I'm doing, Jason,_ she replied. _And I'm tired of flying personnel transports while others are fighting on the front lines, protecting our home. Aya would never permit me to fly a fighter PIM, so as long as you can arrange it so I fly one by remote merge, I want to do this._

_ If that's what you want, then alright,_ he told her. _I'll talk to Juma tomorrow…if you intend to enlist in the Navy or Marines, that is._

_ I would much prefer it,_ she replied. _I'd like to go with the Navy, love. I think I'd be best suited for a carrier squadron, given my special restrictions._

_ Alright then. I'll have someone schedule your flight test, and if you pass, you'll enter the fighter training program with the next class,_ he announced. _Just remember that you're still a merit officer, love, you'll have to meet all the other qualifications to become a full officer, and you'll have to be a full officer to do anything else in the Navy except be a fighter pilot. I'll have Rook make you a bionoid you'll use strictly for military service. That way you can _be there_ with the other pilots, be a part of the squadron and not someone who just flies the fighter, and no doubt you'll have your bionoid in the Wolf the way we use bionoids in Titans when we're not PIM._

_ Thank you, love,_ she told him with a glorious smile.

_I never say no when a member of the family wants to serve the house, Aura,_ he answered, putting a hand on her shoulder. _If _we_ won't defend it, we have no right to ask others to defend it._

_ Which is exactly why I want to join. I hope you don't mind taking the boys and Sera while I'm in fighter training._

_ If you let me keep them that long, I may never give them back,_ he warned, which made her laugh aloud.

The entirety of 3D was already at the core facility when they landed on the pad behind the building, which was almost exactly in the center of Hirsa, sitting on a flattened-out hilltop whose entire flat area was enclosed in the facility fence. The Makati had done a great job making the building fit into the architecture of the rest of the city, and they'd even built a garden out in front of it with the expectation that an _oye_ tree would be planted there eventually…which wasn't a bad guess. Every other CBIM facility had an _oye_ tree growing in front of it, _including_ Cynna's. The Parri had somehow managed to find a seed that would grow inside Kosigi, though her tree was a dwarf compared to the others. The conditions inside the moon weren't exactly conducive to a normal tree, let alone an _oye_ tree, so Cynna's tree was only a rather puny 120 shakra tall; for an _oye_ tree, that _was_ puny. Jason was simply surprised to hell and back that they'd managed to get a tree to grow there, since Kosigi was very much an _artificial _world. It may have started out as a normal moon, but the Karinnes of old had hollowed out the vast majority of it, producing something that was decidedly unnatural. And yet, an _oye_ tree was growing on the moon's core outside of Cynna's facility, which had been terraformed into something of a park area inside the moon. The parts of it not covered in buildings had grass, flowers, and trees growing under sun lamps, and the air there was kept warm all the time, to give the KMS members based there someplace green and warm to go to and relax a little while off duty. They'd even built a few swimming pools and other outdoor sporting venues.

Siyhaa and Myleena were standing on the large landing pad built to the side of the apartment, the Moridon hunched over a tiny bit as the two of them looked at a flat hologram projecting out from the handpanel Myleena had in her hands, as Tom and Maggie directed the other members of 3D as they unloaded a cargo dropship holding all their equipment. "About time you got here, babes," Myleena told him as he and Jyslin approached, and Aya took the kids into the facility to give them a tour of it.

"We're here in plenty of time. Is the core crystal on schedule?"

"It is," Siyhaa nodded. "It will be here in four hours, twelve minutes."

"Plenty of time," Jason assured them, unzipping his jacket in the chilly Hirsa night. "Got the installation team for the _Aegis_ sorted out?"

"It's all ready to go," Myleena answered. "And no, you're not on it."

"We're gonna talk about you two ordering me around," he said in a direct voice.

"You can talk all you want, but _we_ assign installation teams, babes," Myleena grinned. "Besides, it's how we keep your ego in check."

"Good luck with that," Jyslin noted as she walked past, which made Myleena burst into laughter.

_ Watch it, bitch,_ he taunted, which made her make a rude gesture at him as she walked away with the kids…who were giggling.

There was a lot to do, but they had a very large team there, so they ended up having to wait on the crystal to arrive. They took a short break to take a little tour of Hirsa while the core crystal was brought in, Jason driving a hovercar and taking the kids around the city, a city they rarely got to visit due to its distance from Karsa. The lights of the buildings illuminated the chilly night's hazy fog to create an eerie glowing effect, as if the mist was glowing with a million fireflies. The mist interfered a little with the holograms being projected out from the building faces, creating a quite beautiful effect where the holograms seemed to diffuse into the mist.

_This place is so neat,_ Shya told them as she looked out the window. _It's nothing like Dracora or Karsa._

_ I know. I think Hirsa and Virsa are my favorite cities on Karis from an aesthetic point of view. Hirsa's built on these steep hills, and Virsa's built along the islands of the peninsula with some of the buildings in the water. It shows how the Karinnes of old molded their cities to nature rather than trying to change nature to suit their cities. It makes them beautiful in their own way._

_ Yeah. Though I think Kirsa is kinda neat. And Cylan's facility is just bonkers,_ Rann sent, his admiration of Cylan's facility shivering through his thought.

_He's done a lot of work to it. I swear, that boy is worse than a Faey girl when it comes to toys,_ Jason chuckled. _I think he's the only CBIM with an exomech hangar and training range built right onto the grounds of his facility…and they're all _his_ mecha._

_ He does love piloting rigs,_ Rann agreed.

_And what's wrong with Faey girls, Dad?_ Shya demanded flintily.

_Nothing, outside of the need to impress everyone else to the point where you get silly,_ he replied honestly.

_Does he not like the fact that you won't let him fight in the army?_ Rann asked astutely.

_Sometimes, but he understands why I have that rule,_ he replied. _The CBIMs are not _weapons_, and I don't want them to think of themselves that way. They can only fight if Karis itself is threatened. That's what Cylan does with most of his exomechs. He practices so he can defend the planet if it gets invaded, the way it did when the Consortium attacked Karis. He wants to be ready to fight off an attacker both from a merge and directly, by controlling exomechs and fighters and pushing the invaders out of our space. And I gotta say, he's getting scary good at it, especially since he can take control of virtually every exomech not being piloted by a rigger and fight using them, controlling them all at once. The things he can do when he controls a squad or a company of rigs is pretty impressive. And all of it started because he got curious about Vanguard,_ he sent, amusement bleeding into his thought. _That reminds me, the big tournament is next takir._

The tournament was Vanguard's first ever player tournament, which would encompass several aspects of the game. Each of the game's modes would have tournament based on its focus, and in the game's base mode, infantry combat, the tournament would encompass all aspects of it. There would be competitions of individual players in two ways, a ladders match of one against one and a grand Battle Royal where every participant would be set down in the same map and the winner was the last player standing. There would be squad competitions as well, where squads of anywhere from 6-12 players per squad would compete against each other in both a ladders tournament and a battle royal. There would be similar competitions for every other role in a Vanguard match, so there would be rigger competitions, competitions of special ops squads, forward observers, ground support fighter pilots, and so on, for every role in the game except field officers. The last competition would be the Commander's Cup, where the game's best generals would compete in a ladders tournament, battling against each other on custom maps they'd never seen before. Their armies would be random players pulled from other competition rosters, serving as the army for the general when not competing in their own tournaments, but those players would know they were in the Commander's Cup and would be under much more strict rules about obeying commands. It would also ensure that the general had _the best _troops under his command, which would remove the possibility that a general lost in the tournament because he had the bad luck of randomly getting too many low-PR players in his army. His entire army would be filled with players with PR's high enough to qualify for the other tournaments, which would ensure that he'd have an army of grizzled veterans under his command. Usually the field officers had a degree of autonomy in a match, and the grunts could ignore orders, but not in the Commander's Cup. That meant that the generals would have a lot more to do, but that was why it was a competition. It would test not only their strategic skills, but their ability to manage all the incoming information and make the tactical decisions usually made by their field officers.

The game's other modes would have their own tournaments based on their focus, like the Ace Competition of fighter pilots, the Crew Competition for crews aboard a naval vessel, the Captain's Cup for ship captains, and the Admiral's Cup for theater commanders on the game's Naval Battle server, or the Knight Maximus, Catapult Commander, Archer's Tourney, and General's competition on the game's Medieval server. And Vanguard players _loved_ the idea of it. It had been eagerly anticipated since it was announced three months ago, despite the fact that not everyone would be allowed to participate. A player had to have a very high player rating to be eligible for the tournament to ensure that only the game's best players would be participating, and the servers had been super-busy with both the competitors honing their skills and those on the bubble trying to raise their PR high enough to qualify..

_ Are you in it?_

_ Nah, I consider myself ineligible, since I'm part owner of the company that made the game. The game's produced by a shell company connected to 3D, and that kinda-sorta makes me an owner since I created 3D. And Cylan can't enter either because he has an unfair advantage as a CBIM,_ he answered. _I'm just surprised it's gotten so much press. I saw a story about the tournament on INN last night,_ he sent in bemused wonder.

_It _is_ the most popular game in the Imperium, Pam. And in the house too,_ Aria declared. _Ranny and Shya got me playing it. It's really fun._

_I think it's awesome,_ Shya said. _Now that I can merge to the game, it's way, way more fun. Jacked people are really annoying when you're playing with a controller, and now I'm one of the annoying jacked people._

Jason had to laugh. _I think merge-enabled games like Vanguard are responsible for more civilians in the Confederation getting a jack than anything else,_ he told them. _Merge games and simsense, anyway. Sometimes I wonder just how much Yila understood how she was going to change the entertainment industry when she approached me over simsense,_ he mused.

_She knew, Dad, that's why she did it,_ Rann answered. _Isn't she like the fourth richest woman in the Imperium now?_

_ About that,_ he nodded. _I bet it hurts her dark little heart that she's been making far more money _legally_ than _illegally_ lately,_ he added with an audible chuckle._ But, I won't complain. Simsense was the first of the steps that brought us to the bionoid program, and _that_ is far more important. Without simsense, bionoids wouldn't exist._

They got back to the facility just moments before the core crystal arrived, and then things got serious. They brought it into the core room on a crawler, then came the careful, intricate task of seating it and connecting it to the rest of the equipment in the room. That couldn't really be streamlined, so the kids got a little bored as they watched 3D for two hours as they annealed trunks and connected equipment on the core crystal's base, things they couldn't do until the crystal was seated.

But eventually came the moment of truth. The core chamber was packed as everyone crowded in for what they hoped was the last time they'd have to do this, as the last of the CBIMs was about to be brought up for the first time. After the last checklist was finished, Jason allowed Aria the honor of hitting the physical switches that powered up the core.

They'd done this enough times for Jason to not really pay much attention as the core came online and the standard CBIM hologram manifested behind the rail, and the CBIM went through its initialization protocol after receiving the name Cyma. He only really took notice when it came time for the CBIM to customize its hologram, because it took it far too long to make a decision. It looked around the room, and around the room, and around the room, then it looked at Jason and asked a most curious question. _"Must I hold to this image?"_ it asked. _"This seems…wrong to me."_

Jason's eyes lit up a bit, and he took a step forward. "How you wish to appear is purely your decision," he told the hologram. "You go with what you feel most represents the truth of who you are."

The hologram didn't respond, but it winked out and was replaced almost immediately with a radically different one…a _male_ one. The new hologram was tall and somewhat burly, with wide shoulders and a developed torso, but the hologram lacked details like genitalia. The hologram's hair was about shoulder length and a bit tousled and unkempt, framing a face that was square-jawed, rugged, and quite handsome in a very _Terran_ way. The CBIM had taken inspiration from the Terran men in the room to create his hologram. _"Is this acceptable?"_ he asked in a deeper voice.

"The only person that needs to find it acceptable is you," he told the CBIM. "And that hologram means that a change in your designation is in order. Cyma is a _female_ name, and you have selected a _male_ representation. That means that your designation should reflect that choice. So, your designation has changed to Cyman."

_"Processed. New designation stored,"_ the CBIM acknowledged.

Myleena looked entirely disappointed. Cylan, on the other hand, looked quite eager to have a new brother instead of a new sister. It also meant that he was no longer the only male CBIM.

Then came the long and meticulous process of initializing Cyman's core equipment, as they went through them stack by stack, subsystem by subsystem, a process that caused the kids to flee the core chamber to go entertain themselves within the facility as the installation team made sure that everything was working properly and was configured for the CBIM's unique architecture based on its core crystal. It was a process that took nearly six hours, and when it was over, Cyman moved his hologram out from behind the hard shield. _"Command, Jason Karinne?"_

After having Cyman receive the download from Cybi, he explained Cyman's purpose. "You are to operate the continent of Hirga, Cyman," he explained. "You'll facilitate and oversee the immigration of population to the continent as it's terraformed, and once that process is complete, you'll oversee the welfare of the continent's citizens and the maintenance and operation of the continent's systems. Do you understand this task?"

The CBIM was quiet a second. _"My role is to ensure the continent's day to day activities are as smooth as possible?"_

"Yes, but you'll also be responsible for the welfare of the people who live here," he nodded. "As Cyrsi put it, you'll help the people of your continent _live_," he said. "And your continent is going to present some unique challenges, Cyman. Hirga is the most mountainous and geographically challenging continent on Karis for people to live, so you'll have very rugged, independent types here, as well as a large segment of non-Faey citizens that prefer cold or mountainous environments. That means that you'll be dealing with a wide variety of personalities and cultures. That's where Cynna can be a help to you," he told him, motioning towards Cynna's bionoid. "She has a great deal of experience with just that in her role as the Kosigi CBIM, and she can mentor you on how to best go about dealing with a wide array of cultures and outlooks. So, I want you to spend your first hours of uptime studying the Hirgan continent and its current population and start preparing for your duties. You'll start taking over the operating processes for the Hirgan continent from the other CBIMs in three hours, so be ready to assume your duties."

_"Understood."_

"Cybi, you know the drill. Show him around, explain the rules. Just know that you are always welcome at my house, Cyman, and you can commune with me at any time. You are part of my family, and family is always welcome at my door."

_ "Understood."_

"We're going to be leaving an observation team here in your core for the next forty days. They'll be monitoring your systems to ensure everything's working the way it should. If you have any questions or problems, notify one of them immediately. Hadjha, go ahead and set up the observation team. Rook, you two worked out what he wants for his bionoid?"

_"Almost,"_ he replied. _"It should be ready in about twelve hours."_

"Good deal. I'll have Lirren assign him a hovercar and skimmer from the inventory, he can bring them back with him when he gets his bionoid. I think I'll give him a fast skimmer, since he has so far to go to get back and forth. Bring your bionoid over to the strip when it's done, Cyman, so I can see it in person. At least if I'm still awake."

_"I will do so."_

"That's the one part of your duties you may find a bit annoying, Cyman, the time difference," he chuckled. "Your continent is on the other side of the planet from Karsa, so you'll have to deal with being so far away from things, both literally and figuratively."

_ "Then it is advantageous that I do not sleep,"_ he replied, which surprised Jason a little bit. A _joke_? Barely seven hours after his core came online? That was unusual.

They were more or less done, so the team packed up their tools, and Jason collected up his family and got them back on the transport to head home. _[I think we definitely have the most unique CBIM in the last one,]_ Jyslin noted lightly. _[He looks more like you than anything else.]_

_ [I like it,]_ Jason said.

_[Of course you would.]_

_ [Not that he's copying me, but that he can see beyond Faey norms to find what he likes,]_ he replied, glancing back at her from the cockpit with a tart expression. _[And I bet Cylan's preparing an entire bro list of things they can do together.]_

Jyslin had to laugh. _[No doubt. Cylan's not the only male CBIM anymore. He has a little brother now. I'll bet those two and Rook become quite the clique.]_

_[We'll see how he does,]_ Jason noted. _[From what I've seen so far, I'm not worried about Cyman at all. I think he'll be just fine.]_

It was just into early afternoon when they got home, and after a nice big lunch made by Ayama and Surin—Seido was on vacation—he headed in to the White House to get the rest of the day's activities going. There was a very big report waiting for him on his work panel about the peace negotiations with the Consortium, which Mesaiima had been handling for the council, and they'd made some progress. A cease fire had already been signed, and now they were negotiating when and how to move Consortium civilians to their new home in Galaxy A5A-1 under the new mapping system. Rudy and a small fleet of KES scout ships were in the galaxy making sure it met Karinne requirements, and thus far, it did look like the galaxy they needed. It had abundant resources and thus far a complete lack of spacefaring civilizations. But it did have some sentient species, and that was where the peace talks were bogging down. The Consortium was reluctant to agree to not conquer those indigenous species, and Jason wasn't going to sign off on the peace treaty and open the Stargate without that being an ironclad part of the treaty.

The Stargate was already there, placed at what Jason felt was the most promising system in the galaxy, which had _fifteen_ life-sustaining planets or moons, which would give the Consortium ample local resources and a solid base of operations from which to locate and colonize other systems. They'd had to move it in pieces and assemble it, a process that took nearly 13 days, and currently it was linked to a Stargate at Karis to give the KES and KMS easy access to the galaxy.

And that in itself was quite educational. They'd learned trying to link the Stargates that the _theoretical_ unlimited link range of a Stargate was not quite so infinite as the math suggested. They'd had some major issues linking two Stargates that were _millions_ of light years apart, and most of those issues had to deal with temporal mechanics. It was most easily explained by a Terran example the Panama Canal, where the canal required multiple locks to move ships between the Atlantic and Pacific because the Pacific Ocean's level was much higher than the Atlantic's. They'd encountered a similar phenomenon trying to link the gate, but the "sea level difference" wasn't water, it was physical laws dealing with constants. Several constants that were considered immutable numbers in local space were _different _in Galaxy A5A-1. They weren't different by much, but there _were _different. The culprit that gremlined their attempts to link a Stargate was the temporal constant of space, it was different enough between the two Stargate locations for the link to run into an incongruency trying to negotiate the spatial coordinates to form a wormhole, creating an imbalance sufficient enough to interfere with the linking of the gates. They'd had to install some very expensive custom-built temporal filters and equipment into both Stargates to equalize the flux within the wormhole formed by the gates to get them to link together safely.

It showed that the characteristics of space and time were not _universal_. Different regions of the universe had different _textures_ of space-time, with slightly different mathematical constants, and trying to link two points with sufficiently different constant values together with a Stargate wasn't possible. But, from a physicist point of view, it was absolutely fascinating. They'd learned that not even constants were universal, that one's location within the universe dictated the value of a constant based on the environment of the universe at that location. That sent a few shockwaves through the Physics Department at the Academy when Cyrsi released that data into the public domain, and quite a few of them were studying the effect.

Myleena was also studying the effect, mainly to determine the maximum safe distance two Stargates could be apart and be safely linked, both without the special equipment and with it. What it told him was that instead of being able to link any two Stargates in the universe together, they'd have to link them together in chains at shorter distances to get a ship from Point A to Point Z. A ship would have to traverse multiple gates to get to Point Z, where before they believed that they could just link a gate right to Point Z and cross that distance instantly. So, Stargates weren't going to open up the entire universe, but they would make it feasible to travel vast, vast distances within it. They wouldn't be crossing the universe in the blink of an eye, but they might someday create a network that would allow a ship to travel from one side of the universe to the other in a matter of months.

One thing that what the different mathematical constants _didn't_ interfere with was telepathy. The experiments they did proved that biogenic commune, which was telepathy, transcended those differences in space-time. Time dilation did come into play, but the difference in constants between the home galaxy and Galaxy A5A-1 wasn't enough to cause any side effects. There was a bit of time dilation because that galaxy had a faster relative velocity than the home galaxy on top of having a different galactic gravity well, and those two elements combined caused time to flow about 1.7% slower than the home galaxy. That wasn't enough to cause any side effects for someone merged to a bionoid from Karis, outside of giving those exceedingly sensitive to time dilation a mild headache after extended bionoid use.

For now, the brains over at Karinne Spatial Technologies decided that two gates would have a maximum link distance of 1.31281 million light years, which would allow Stargates in different galactic clusters in the Greater Evanis String to be linked together. Each cluster would have a galaxy, preferably the most centrally located within the cluster, to serve as the hub of the cluster. That galaxy would have a hub of Stargates connecting to every other galaxy in the cluster, but would also have a hub that would connect to Stargates in the adjoining galactic clusters within linking range. That would allow a ship to move across the Greater Evanis String in a matter of hours by traveling from Stargate to Stargate that linked the hub galaxies between clusters. That would work for String A, but it might be problematic to link to String B. The opposing string in the cosmic formation was well outside the maximum linking range for a Stargate. Myleena was floating the idea of placing a Stargate in flat space between the two strings and putting a massive spatial device there to bring time dilation to normal within the effect, in effect creating an artificial gravity well powerful enough to slow down time to within an acceptable level within the effect to make it feasible.

It was more than doable. She'd already written a subroutine that mimicked the effect for KES and KMS vessels so they could create a spatial field around themselves that reduced time dilation if they had to drop out of hyperspace deep in flat space, which would slow down time enough to allow them to inherit the effect's snapshot when they jumped back into hyperspace to make the duration of the journey reasonable. The trick couldn't bring time to the same flow rate as Karis, but it could get it down to within 26% when used in the deepest of flat space, space that had a curvature coefficient below 0.06, and that was enough to make it possible to drop out of hyperspace in the deepest of flat space and get back into hyperspace without the trip taking the crew 10 months of subjective time just to get to a place where they could drop out to inherit a new snapshot to reduce the time of the journey. The trip would take 26% longer to complete, but that was a hell of a lot better than 30,000% longer. Gravometric engines did create gravity wells, and gravity wells were the key to slowing down time to counter time dilation.

It was already decided that for the home galaxy, the future intergalactic Stargate hub would _not_ be at Karis. That was a potential security risk. If a hostile spacefaring civilization found a Stargate hub, they could cross through and get to the planet in a matter of minutes. It would also not be at Terra, for the same reason. The future intergalactic hub would be located at a star system in the 1Q1K sector, which was the most centrally located for all empires in the Confederation, while the system itself held nothing but a small orange star and several asteroid belts. The system had no populace to be threatened by an invading force, and the system itself was far enough away from the nearest Confederation system that the invaders wouldn't see it on their sensors. They would tow several deep space stations out there to serve as entry stations for each Stargate leading to another galaxy or galactic cluster, and the system would be interdicted with _three_ layers of interdiction to keep any potential invaders within the system and give the Confederation time to respond to the invading force.

The Terran Stargate to Prakka would be taken down, at least as far as the Confederation was concerned, as part of the future peace treaty with the Syndicate. But, Jason was _not_ giving up that foothold into Andromeda. The Stargate at Prakka would be linked to a Stargate at a system within the Strands of Trelle about halfway between Oasis and Tir Tairngire that the KES found four months ago in their exploration of the Strands. SS3-63 was a fairly large system with two habitable planets and three habitable moons, which Captain Jeru of the KES had named Oraia, and was now a Karinne holding that produced food, a sensor outpost to detect ships trying to reach Tir Tairngire from the Q quadrant, and held several scientific research stations to study the cosmic environment in the Strands and how life developed and adapted to being outside a galactic formation. Prakka itself would become a joint Kimdori-Karinne holding, holding a Karinne forward military base from which they could sally forth if the Syndicate broke the peace treaty and a forward base of operations for the Kimdori to explore and keep an eye on Andromeda. The Syndicate had no idea it was there—not even Gen knew exactly where it was, even if he knew that the Confederation controlled a system within Andromeda—and they had no way to even find it. The conditions that close to the galaxy's core made it impossible for Syndicate sensors to detect the military bases there, and the natural interdiction effect of the quadrary made it impossible for them to reach Prakka even if they knew it was there.

He worked through several other reports, then got to the other report he wanted to see. The Syndicate was still more or less in political upheaval after the assassination of the Board, with only 75 of the 153 megacorps selecting a new CEO. Without a quorum of 91 members, 60% of available seats, the Board could do no business, so that meant that they couldn't discuss the offered peace treaty with the Confederation. But what they'd heard from Kraal told him that it was just a matter of time. The CEOs that had already been selected were in favor of the peace treaty…not because they wanted peace, but because they wanted time to come up with some way to counter Confederation technology before trying again. Though, 37 of the new CEOs wanted nothing at all to do with the Confederation, taking Jason's warning to heart. From their perspective, they'd been outmaneuvered by an empire that _also_ had Oracles, and now that all their Oracles were dead or captured, they were at a distinct disadvantage…and disadvantages were not profitable. They wanted to take the territory ceded by the Consortium and incorporate it into the Syndicate, then do some peacetime infrastructure improvements, which the war with the Confederation had exposed as dreadfully neglected. The Syndicate had become so big and so miserly that it had refused to upgrade its infrastructure to deal with the technological advances of their enemies, and those CEOs intended to rectify that oversight.

They were the smart ones, because they saw infrastructure as an investment on future profits, where the new infrastructure would make production and transportation cheaper, communications faster and more effective, and improve efficiency throughout the Syndicate. And efficiency was profit.

There was one thing they were preparing to do, however, and that involved Gen. Tomorrow, the last of the Syndicate sailors and prisoners of war would be relocated to Atrovet, and they were going to take down the interdictors to allow the Syndicate fleet that was inbound to reach the moon and pick them up. Gen would literally be the last prisoner transferred, which would happen tomorrow afternoon, and he was using the last of his time in the Confederation by helping the techs finish the last of the modifications to his Marauder. They weren't letting him keep his interface-refitted Marauder, but they were going to let him keep one that had some of the modifications they'd made to make it stronger, faster, and more durable, showing the Syndicate just what a Marauder could be if the Syndicate spent just a _little_ bit of money upgrading them. Gen's Marauder would be the most badass Marauder in the Syndicate inventory, and they'd done it without using Karinne technology. They'd simply upgraded what was already there using _Syndicate_ technology, upgrading and streamlining its power system, replacing its support endoskeleton with more rugged metals, upgrading its armor to a purified high-grade Carbidium armor that was 38% stronger and made the Marauder 28% lighter (they knew the Syndicate could produce high-grade Carbidium since it was one of the layers they used in super-ship armor), and upgrading its onboard computer to make it nearly 41% faster. In that Marauder, Gen would be a nightmare against about anyone other than Kyva, jack or no jack. But, he'd admitted that he'd nearly gotten spoiled by the interface controller, and going back to manual controls would feel like a major downgrade.

But he wasn't just going to be punted out and never contacted again, because Gen and Jason had become good friends over the last month, as well as him becoming fast friends with Kyva. Jason was going to have Kraal keep a close eye on Gen to make sure he was alright, and Gen would also have a disguised comm unit that would allow him to get in touch with Karis, so he could talk to his friends and pass along any information he felt they needed to know. He wasn't going to be a spy, he had too much honor to do something like that, but he also didn't want another war between the Syndicate and the Confederation, so he'd do what he could to prevent that without betraying the Syndicate Marines. The Kimdori would know if they took the unit away from him or he lost it, so they'd replace it when necessary.

The Kimdori, and the Karinnes, had plans for Lieutenant Gen Run Ba Ru. It was their hope that his information would permanently squelch any war talk once the Board read his debriefing report, and Jason himself hoped that Gen's experiences on Karis and with the KMS might cause him to spread his new outlook to his Benga kinsmen. Change had to come to the Syndicate from within, and Gen had changed enough while with the Karinnes to hopefully change the outlook of some other Benga, who would hopefully change other Benga, who would change other Benga, and so on. And with luck, it would spur a movement within Benga society to move them away from their greed-dominated, uncaring society and bring some kindness and compassion into their culture. Gen was the right choice for that, because he was highly respected within the Syndicate military, charismatic to both Terrans and other Benga, and could instill change in others the way he'd molded the Raiders into something that was quite un-Benga in the loyalty he inspired in the riggers under his command.

Gen couldn't change the Syndicate or the Benga in his lifetime, but he could plant the seeds that might, in a few generations, bring about social change that brought light and love back into the hearts of the Benga.

He had promised E Chaio he would try to help, and he was not going back on that promise.

Jason was going to see Gen off tomorrow. His Benga bionoid was already at Prakka, and he was going to spend a last day with Gen dicking around the base before he was taken to Atrovet and the interdictors taken down. Jason was having an infiltration bionoid built using the same facial features as the bionoid he'd been using to hang out with Gen, and he was going to have Kraal ship that bionoid to wherever Gen was assigned when he finished his debriefing. He fully intended to drop in on him and just hang out with him from time to time. He didn't want Gen to think that he was going to be abandoned after he was sent back to the Syndicate, and he for sure didn't want Gen to think that Jason's friendship didn't extend into Andromeda. Gen was his _friend_, and he was loyal to his friends.

Gen already had permission from Jason to tell the Syndicate _everything_. Everything he saw, everything he experienced, while he was contracted with the Confederation. They hired Gen and the other Benga in the program to foster peace between the two governments, to understand the Benga better as a people so they might find a way to create a lasting peace, and they wanted the Board to _know_ that. After all, Gen was hired not only to tell them about the Benga, but to tell the _Benga_ about _them_. And Jason was sure that his report would mystify the fuck out of the Board. They weren't used to things like kindness or friendship, and might see many of the things they did for Gen to be currying favor with him. And it was Jason's hope that the fact that Gen had cultivated a personal relationship with a leader in the Confederation would make him too important for them to do anything bad to him.

Gen had done one thing for Jason, and that was help train him. Gen was an amazing rigger, but he was also a damn good teacher, helping Jason improve his skills both in a Marauder and in a Titan. He also gave Jason several lessons introducing him to the lancer's pike, a Marauder pilot's standard issue melee weapon, and a weapon that was now part of the Titan inventory. The Karinnes had developed their own version of the weapon, a weapon that utilized an expanding Dobrellium shaft and used IP technology on both the shaft and the blade. Dobrellium was a curious metal that could expand and contract when exposed to a particular form of plasma energy, shifting between two states that could be set when the metal was purified and cast, which caused the weapon shaft to expand from its carrying length of seven shakra with a blade that was nine shakra long, making it something like a dagger or short sword, to its fully extended length of 36 shakra with a 16 shakra long blade, making it a little longer than the Titan was tall, and the proper height as dictated by Gen for a pike. It weighed the same if it was expanded or contracted, and the fact that the metal would conduct an interphasic waveform when it was either compressed or expanded meant they could make the pike into powered armor, making it nearly impossible to bend or break. The IP unit was in the crosspiece connecting the blade to the shaft of the weapon, along with the charge system that caused the metal to expand and contract. The blade of the unit was cast so that in either configuration, it was sharpened to a monomolecular edge, giving the pike the same cutting power as the monomolecular blades in a Titan's arms. All it took to make the pike work for a Titan was to sync the interphasic waveform used by the pike with the waveform in the armor sections that made up the mecha's hands. The pikes didn't look all that fancy, since the shafts and blades had no decorations and the crosspiece unit had to be plain because of the IP waveform, but the pike was damn nasty when used by a competent rigger.

It was another example of the House of Karinne's most underestimated aspect, and that was their _adaptability_. They weren't so proud that they wouldn't use technology invented by someone else. They used what worked, and the pikes _worked_, so they adapted them for their own use. The fact that the most iconic weapon of a Titan was the Vindicator gatling disruptor proved that point just as much as the pikes did. Disruptor technology was invented by the Coalition, which was adapted by the House of Karinne and developed into the Vindicator. For that matter, the House employed Knight and Raptor mecha, which were both invented by the Imperium. Sure, they were refitted with Karinne technology, but the designs were Imperium.

Titans…Jason picked up a handpanel holding a report from Jinaami, holding a picture of Dahnai's latest secret project. It was a mecha, a very tall, sleek mecha, which had been given the codename _Valkyrie_. It was Dahnai's answer to a Titan, 43 shakra tall, which made it slightly shorter than a Titan, but more lithe to reduce its weight to make the mecha viable using current Imperium mecha technology. It used standard Imperium methodology when it came to mecha, trying to make it fast and agile, have just enough armor to let it take a few hits, and armed to the fucking _teeth_. The Imperium was one of the empires they felt had the technological capability to build Titan-size mecha, and Dahnai had wasted little time having her engineers build their own version of a Titan after seeing the Titans in action. The mecha was still in the development stage, but Jinaami reported that they may have a working prototype within three months.

And he had to smile a little. Dahnai _loved_ the name Valkyrie, which the Dreamers had given her. It was no surprise she intended to give the Imperium's answer to Titans that name.

He decided to check in on Kimdori reports on the other empires' mecha development to see where they were at. Right now, six different empires were developing their own Titan-concept mecha, and some were further along than others. The Verutans were the furthest along, maybe a month away from a working prototype. The Subrians were just behind them, and may have their prototype in testing by the end of next month. The Skaa Empire was still in development, they'd hit a snag with their power distribution systems…and it said something that the first ever actual combat mecha the Skaa were going to build was a Titan-style mecha. The Skaa far preferred hovertanks to mecha, but they'd seen how effective Titans were and were adapting. The Alliance had just begun the development stage after researching upgrades to mecha servo systems that could handle the weight and stresses on the joints of mecha that large. And what was most surprising, the Jirunji had just entered development stage for their own Titan-style mecha.

The Jirunji were one of the most technologically advanced empires in the Confederation thanks to their exceptionally intelligent males devoting themselves to educational and scientific pursuits—similar to the Faey—but since they were the smallest of the high-tech empires, they often lacked the resources or funding to pursue high-cost research projects like a Titan-style mecha. No doubt Sovial had taken out some pretty hefty loans from the Moridon to fund that research. If the Jirunji could pull it off, though, they could probably make quite a bit of money hiring out as consultants for other empires who wanted to build their own mecha. So in a way, Sovial was probably making an investment with the hope of future returns.

A shimmer in his office caught his attention, and he looked up to see two holograms form. One was Cybi's, and the other was Cyman's, no doubt showing him Jason's office. _[This is Jason's work office, Cyman, in the White House complex,]_ she communed, including Jason. _[My facility is also in this complex, just across the grounds. This building holds the military command center, Miaari's intelligence headquarters, and the offices of the House's governing departments. You will be spending much time here.]_

_ [How goes the tour, Cybi?]_ Jason asked as he looked at Cyman's hologram.

_[We started in Hirga, went up to Kosigi, then came back to the planet and worked our way across the other continents. I saved Karga for last,]_ she replied. _[I'll be showing him the external holdings next.] _

_[So, what do you think of Karis, Cyman?]_

_ [It's a large and diverse planet, Jason,]_ he answered. _[With much potential.]_

_ [It is indeed. Did you introduce him to the Parri yet?]_

_ [Not yet, Jason. I like to warn them before I project a hologram there,]_ she answered. _[And I usually far prefer to visit with a bionoid. They're still a bit uncomfortable speaking to a hologram, even after all this time. Besides, I absolutely adore _oye _bark tea.]_

_ [There is a large file on the Parri in the database,]_ Cyman said. _[They are a unique species.]_

_ [Very,]_ Jason agreed with a nod. _[And what do you think of interacting with biologicals so far?]_

_ [I have found it most interesting,]_ he replied. _[The diversity of the people of the house is most intriguing. Even within a species, individuals can be very different from one another.]_

_ [Yes, it's one of our most annoying traits to Cybi,]_ he communed cheekily, which made her put her hands on her holographic hips and give him a tart look. _[Then again, she's a crusty old lady by now, so she's a bit too set in her ways to enjoy much of anything.]_

_ [Excuse me?]_ Cybi retorted dangerously.

_[She did warn about your penchant for banter,]_ Cyman observed clinically.

_[It's how he shows love…by being a jerk,]_ Cybi told him.

_[It keeps you on your toes,]_ he replied shamelessly. _[Is Rook working on your bionoid?]_

_ [I settled on a final design, and it's currently under construction,]_ Cyman answered. _[Rook said it should be ready in about seven hours.]_

_ [I'll be asleep by then. Keep it here in Karsa and bring it by the house in the morning so I can see it. You get his apartment set up, Cybi?]_

She nodded. _[We found a nice one in the Bela Building over in the Arts District.]_

_ [It had a view of Karsa Bay that was similar to the view from the apartment in my facility,]_ Cyman offered. _[I found it…pleasing.]_

_ [Good deal. I think you'll enjoy the bionoid, Cyman. All the other biogenics do.]_

_ [It will be new to me, and I am finding that I am enjoying discovering new things.]_

_ [That's exactly the kind of attitude the CBIM running Hirga needs,]_ he communed, approval shimmering through his thought.

_[We'll let you get back to work, Jason,]_ Cybi announced. _[I'm sure you'd like to finish up and be home before dark.]_

_ [Yes I would,]_ he agreed. _[I'll have Ayama make some different things for breakfast for you to try, Cyman.]_

_ [Thank you, Jason. I have heard from the others of this _taste_ sense, and am curious to experience it myself.]_

The two of them demanifested their holograms, leaving him alone in the office again. He buckled down and worked through the last of his paperwork, routine reports and a few simple decisions to make on things his Cabinet sent up to him. He cleared his inbox just a little after sunset, coming out of his office and sparing Chichi a few chin scratches as she lounged on her bed by the door, Chirk at her desk working through some paperwork of her own. Verra was still in as well, working on something at her desk, which was situated beside Brall's. "Brall done for the day?" he asked as he picked up the tabi and nuzzled her.

"He's up in Kosigi right now, your Grace, finishing his appointments for the day," Verra answered. "I'm getting our task lists ready for tomorrow."

"Both of you going out tomorrow?"

"Mmm," she hummed, which was a Beryan thing for _yes_. "Brall will be aggravating Bunvar over those projects up in Hirsa, and I'll be over on Tir Tairngire doing a progress check on Alaria." Alaria was going to be the first Dreamer city. Named for the Dreamer word for _Gateway_, it was going to be a fairly large city not far from where Jason's vacation house that would serve as the gateway into Tir Tairngire for all travelers coming and going from the planet, as well as the point of interface between the House and the Dreamers in all respects; governmental, economic, military, and civilian. Virtually all non-Dreamers that would be on Tir Tairngire would be living in Alaria, leaving the rest of the moon to the Dreamers. It would also be the new capitol of the government they intended to set up, at least in time. Karinne corps and the House were already building their headquarter buildings and agency buildings there for operation on the moon, and the House was more or less footing the bill for the rest of the city. But it was a smart move on behalf of the Dreamer Elders to have the city built, and it was a good first step for the Dreamers to assimilate into the rest of the galaxy. Like many cities on Karis, it would be lots of buildings with few inhabitants for a while, but would slowly populate as the Dreamers got themselves situated.

Bunvar's team of city planners had gotten with the Dreamer Elders to decide on the type of architecture they wanted and the layout of the city, and Jason could admit, they'd done a great job The Dreamers showed Bunvar's team some images in old books of Dreamer architecture before they were moved to Atrovet, which was an elegant, flowing type of building style not too far from Faey architecture—which was no surprise, given the Faey and the Dreamers were virtually the same race—and Bunvar's team had designed an entire city based on that architecture. The buildings would be modern technology and there would be megabuildings like most any city on Karis or Draconis, but the style of those buildings would adhere to the Dreamer's original architectural style. That would make the city of Alaria beautiful on top of fully functional. But there would be one very interesting aspect of the city, and that was that the planning team intentionally left plenty of space in and around the city for _oye_ trees. They wanted to plant the trees as early as possible so they could start to grow, and the city's skyline would be a mixture of buildings and golden canopies of _oye_ trees.

And that was where Bunvar and her team ran into the quirkiness of the Parri. When they approached the Parri to get seeds for the city, the _shaman_ wouldn't give them to them, because those seeds weren't _meant_ to be planted on Tir Tairngire. She told them that they would have to keep an eye on the tree that was there, and when it started to fruit, they could use the seeds in the fruits and plant them.

And that was a curious distinction, in Jason's mind. Usually, _oye_ fruit were seedless, but the _shaman_ told them that the fruits produced by the tree on Tir Tairngire would have seeds. What it told him was that most _oye_ trees produced fruit purely for the consumption and enjoyment of others, but the tree on Tir Tairngire would be producing fruit to propagate itself. It made him wonder if those fruits would taste any different.

It probably wouldn't be long before the tree began to produce fruit. It was nearly 90 shakra tall already, and its canopy was starting to really spread out. Its leaves had also started to turn gold, which meant those leaves were mature. At the speed it was growing, it would probably be large enough to produce fruit in four or five months.

"Nice, get me some good pictures of the progress and send them to my panel," he told the female Beryan as he put Chichi back in her bed.

He headed down to the landing pad where his skimmer was parked, but decided against going home immediately. He had no guards with him today, and it had been a while since he'd just roamed around Karsa…besides, there was some shopping he wanted to do without anyone looking over his shoulder. He left the skimmer on the pad and instead called a hovercar from the White House motor pool, one of the nondescript ones kept on the grounds, a hovercar that would attract no attention whatsoever. He climbed in and took off, and was quickly lost among the other traffic in the city. He headed over to the Trades District, where most of the main shops and businesses were located, then enjoyed about two hours of not being a Grand Duke, but being just another guy roaming the plazas and walkways around the megabuildings of the district, visiting the shops in the buildings and the ones that were in small stand-alone buildings between them. Despite being the Grand Duke, he could get away with things like that because not everyone could recognize him by sight, and those that did made no big deal over him being there. He was well known to just wander around Karsa like a regular citizen, and the people of Karsa knew that that was exactly what he thought he was. The people of the House knew that Jason was a very modest man, did not put himself above the people he ruled, and it was one of the things that endeared him to his people.

And there were many different kinds of people now. Karsa was no longer Faey dominated, they were more of the majority minority now. There were more Faey than anything else on the plazas and sidewalks, but there were more non-Faey than Faey now. Faey, Terrans, and Shio still made up the majority of the population of the house, but there were so many other races and species now, it was no longer unusual to see them on the streets. Karsa had the most racially diverse population of any city on Karis, and that was blatantly obvious when one walked the streets of the city. Races as small as the Pai, Prakarikai, and Meju walked past beings as big as Druvoms, Ogravians, and Bari-Bari. Lithe and willowy Keelo shared the sidewalk with hulking brutes like the Skaa and Ubutu. Ethereally beautiful races like the Faey, Rathii, and Sha'i-ree shared space with not entirely attractive races like the Jobodi, Birkons, and Jakkans.

He didn't get completely away with anonymity, though. He did shake a few hands, took a few selfies with Karsans happy or excited to see him, but all in all, he was able to roam the shopping district and pick up a few things, as well as get some ideas for future presents for birthdays.

He got home in time to do some diaper duty for Jon and Julia before dinner, and after dinner, he sat out on the deck on his favorite lounger and read a few reports from Chirk and Myleena and enjoyed the warm Karsa evening, a nice breeze blowing in from the ocean and a thunderstorm sitting a few kathra offshore to flicker light through the night with its lightning.

He was honestly surprised when Seido stepped out onto the deck and stood by the rail nearly in front of him. She was supposed to be on vacation. _You're back a day early, Seido,_ he noted. _I thought you weren't supposed to be back until tomorrow afternoon._

_I had to leave,_ she said, her thought a jumble of emotions.

He was up and behind her in a heartbeat, his hands on her shoulders. _What happened?_

_ I met someone,_ she replied without looking back at him. _She's_ perfect_ Jason. Just perfect. But things were happening so fast, I had to cut my vacation short so I could pull back and have time to think. I told her I got recalled to Karis due to a family emergency._

That sounded Shio. Shio, particularly women, did not like to go fast when it came to affairs of the heart. It was why Tim turned off Mikano so much. The Shio were about the romance, the courtship, even after they were married. And Shio could date for years before they even entertained the idea of marriage. For Seido to pull back because she thought things were happening too fast was a very Shio thing to do. But, there was more to it than that, he could tell. There was a lot of fear and apprehension in her thoughts, which had nothing to do with the fear she was going too fast. She was unsure, anxious, and it had something to do with this person she met. _So, who is she?_

_ Her name is Merra Darksky,_ she replied, turning around and facing him. _She's a chef at the resort I stayed at. My first meal there was truly exceptional, so I asked to meet the chef…and things just happened from there. Jason, she's so beautiful, and intelligent, and engaging,_ she sent, her thought vibrant and filled with emotion. _We ended up spending almost every moment she was off work together. It was so much, so fast, I told her I had to come home a day early._

_ And what aren't you telling me, Seido? I can sense a whole lot of apprehension._

_ I didn't tell her I'm a telepath,_ she replied. _I didn't eavesdrop on her surface thoughts at all, but she told me a couple of times that Faey make her uneasy because they're telepathic. I'm surprised a Shio with that attitude would move to Karis, but—_

_ Relax, Seido,_ he assured her, patting her shoulders. _You didn't eavesdrop, and if she likes you as much as you like her, she won't _care_ if you're a telepath._

_ But—_

_ There are no buts. If she does care about you, Seido, the fact that you have talent shouldn't matter. And it _can_ work if you go out with someone who doesn't have talent. Look at Temika and Mike, or Songa and Luke,_ he reminded her. _They may be married now, but both Mike and Luke knew that their girlfriends had talent, and it didn't stop them, because they _cared_ about them. Don't let your talent rule your life, Seido. You left the Federation to make sure it didn't, and you shouldn't let it dictate who you date now that you're here. If you're interested in her, then don't use _this_ as an excuse not to see her._

_ I know, I know, it's just…I'm afraid it _will_ matter to her._

_ It's going to be fine, Seido. I promise. Now go inside and unpack and get some rest,_ he ordered. _And you'd better remember that you're off tomorrow. If I see you in the kitchen tomorrow morning, you're gonna get paddled._

She gave him a wan smile, then kissed him on the cheek. He moved to let her back inside, and watched her as she walked through the kitchen door. Merra Darksky, she said…well. A quick query at the Department of Member Services gave him a picture and bio of her, and Seido was right…she _was_ beautiful. Willowy, surprisingly young, with nearly black hair with greenish undertones and large, luminous violet eyes. Chef by profession, joined the House just five months ago. Moved to the resort town of Debria on Sarga four months ago, after the continent was opened. Debria was one of the towns that had already been terraformed, and it wasn't far from Sarsa. Worked at the Four Palms Resort as a chef…not the head chef, but a senior chef, and had been there for three months. Like most Sarga resorts, the culinary department there was dominated by Shio. There was nothing in her Kimdori screening file that said she was against telepaths, and that was something that would usually be added in. Most likely, her aversion to telepaths was with Faey who had a sexual interest in her and used their telepathy to eavesdrop on her surface thoughts to try to get a couple of quick points in at the outset; she _was_ a gorgeous woman, and Faey and Shio had similar concepts of beauty.

It wasn't sunset yet in Sarga, and it was just about coming on dinnertime. And she was scheduled to work today. _[Jenn,]_ he called. _[Busy?]_

[_Not dreadfully. What's up?]_

_ [I know Meya's not back yet, so wanna go grab something to eat?]_

_ [Sure.]_

_ [Meet me at my landing pad.]_

Jenn wandered over a moment later, and they climbed in his skimmer. He raised an eyebrow when Jason told control his destination was on Sarga. _[We're going all the way to Sarga to eat dinner?]_

_ [We are today,]_ he replied. _[We're gonna go check out someone Seido met on her vacation.]_

_ [What do you mean, check out?]_

_ [Just that. Seido really likes her, but she's a bit nervous. So I wanna go take a look at this woman.]_

Jenn gave him a sidelong look. _[Seido's not your daughter.]_

_ [No, but she is my friend,]_ he replied. _[And she's your friend too, probably her best friend on the strip that's not in my house. That's why I invited you over anyone else.]_

_ [As long as we don't do anything stupid,]_ he warned. _[If Seido finds out we're snooping, she'll kill us.]_

_ [I'm not going to do anything. I just want to get an impression of her.]_

The skimmer got them there in about an hour, and they landed on a public pad just outside the Four Palms Resort. Jason had Cybri meet them at the pad with her bionoid, and the three of them entered the restaurant on the grounds of the resort.

Cybri had turned into quite a unique CBIM. Where Cyman had adopted a more Terran appearance, Cybri was the most Terran of the CBIMs in personality. More than any other the others, she had a very _feminine_ personality, as a Terran would understand the concept of femininity. She was gentle and demure, she was quiet and observant, and she was nurturing and caring for those under her charge. She preferred listening to talking, and like all CBIMs, she was very curious and constantly strove to improve herself. But, when the need came to put her foot down, Cybri was just as steel-willed as any of the CBIMs. She knew she was in charge, and when she had to wield that power, she wielded it like a spiked club. She preferred finding a less confrontational solution to her problem, but she also knew that she was _the boss_ on Sarga, and people followed the rules and procedures she had instituted when they stood on _her_ continent.

One way she showed her difference was in the citizens of Sarga. She knew _all_ of them, every single one of them, and she talked to every single one of them at least once a day on average. She just didn't know what was in their files as the other continent CBIMs tended to do, she _knew_ them. Her concept of looking after the welfare of the citizens on her continent was to be engaged with them on a personal level, to know them far beyond just their files, to know their goals, their hopes, and their dreams, so she could work with them so they could try to achieve them. When she first came online, she called up every permanent citizen and just _talked_ to them, got to know them, which had surprised many of her citizens. And even now, she spontaneously called people on Sarga just to say hi, or catch up with them, so she knew if they needed her help or if their goals had changed. Granted, she could do it fairly easily since she had the smallest continent and the smallest population, thus the smallest work load. Doing what she did only added about 4% to her overall process load, and she had the processing power to spare. But it was her decision to engage with her citizens on that level that was so unique. None of the others did that, preferring to work in the background. So, inviting Cybri along had a definite advantage, because she _knew_ this Merra Darksky.

_[And what are we doing here, Jason?]_ Cybri asked, communing with them through her bionoid as they met her at the entrance to the restaurant. Jason noticed that she'd altered her bionoid slightly, making the skin a little darker to simulate a tan and lightened her hair a tiny bit, and she was dressed in a black bikini top and a pair of tan shorts with Terran flip-flops, making her look much more like a resident of Sarga. Her bionoid held to a CBIM's Sora-like face, was a little taller than average for a Faey woman and with a slightly flatter chest, with short silver-white hair that was a bit tousled, looking both unkempt and attractive at the same time.

_[You're going to give me the skinny on how Seido's vacation went, and help me scope out the woman she met,]_ he answered honestly. _[She got home a little out of sorts.]_

_ [Ah. I was going to talk to you about that tomorrow,]_ she answered, then turned to the greeter in the restaurant, a tall, young Shio man. "Hello Verrim," she said in a kind voice. Speaking Shio like a native. "How are you today?"

"Miss Cybri!" he said in surprise. "I didn't expect to see you here in person!"

"They installed a system in these new bionoids that lets me eat, so I thought to go around and try some of the cuisine at the resorts," she said, touching the upper chest of her bionoid with her fingertips. "Think you can find a table for me and my guests?"

"Of course I can!" he said eagerly. "Would you like a private room, or a seat in the dining area?"

"The dining area is fine," she told him with a gentle smile.

_ [Now I see why you invited her,]_ Jenn communed with some admiration and amusement.

_[This is her continent,]_ Jason agreed with a grin at the bionoid.

It said as much that the greeter recognized Cybri, but didn't recognize Jason.

They got a pretty nice table near the bar, by the windows with a great view of the ocean, and they received menus. Shio restaurants had traditions, and one of them was that menus were printed on paper and handed out, and they were written by hand in Shio calligraphy with photos of the dishes. Shio restaurants didn't just tell you what they served, they showed you what they served, and that could be a help when guests couldn't read Shio. That made the menus a little larger, the one Jason was given was eighteen pages, but tradition was tradition, and no traditions were more sacred to the Shio than traditions that revolved around food.

_[They must have some good chefs here, they have a very large menu,]_ Jenn noted. _[And they serve Faey and Terran dishes as well. Wait, this is a Colony dish, so they serve even more than that.]_

_ [These resorts cater to more than just the main three, Jenn,]_ Cybri told him, referring to the "main three" races of Faey, Terran, and Shio. _[And Shio chefs enjoy expanding their culinary skills into other cultures.]_

_ [So, how good is this Merra Darksky?]_ Jason asked.

_[She's 27 years old, which is very young for a chef in her position,]_ she answered. _[She graduated from one of the upper tier culinary schools on Shio Prime three years ago and put in her time in the smaller diners and restaurants in the Federation. She decided to move to Karis for two reasons, to escape the social stigma homosexuals have in the Federation and to seek out the opportunity to open her own restaurant, which can be extremely hard for younger Shio in the Federation.]_

_ [That's almost identical to Seido,]_ Jason mused.

_[Seido and Merra aren't unique among the Shio in the house, Jason. Many of them came here for opportunity and to escape the Federation's views on their lifestyle. Merra passed the screening five months ago and moved to Sarga almost as soon as she immigrated to the house, and has worked here since she arrived. She was promoted up from junior chef within two takirs of getting here, which means that she proved her culinary skills to the head chef.]_

_ [And what's she like?]_ Jason asked.

_[I like her,]_ she answered. _[She has a rich sense of humor and she's dedicated to her career, but like many Shio homosexuals, she's very guarded about her private life and tends to be introverted because of it. She keeps it a secret, even here, because her boss and the resort management are all Shio and she's afraid she'll lose her job if they find out.]_

_ [That's against the law,]_ Jason protested.

_[Laws can be bent, Jason. I've already had to resolve several instances of Shio claiming they were fired over their sexual orientation, but their bosses found other reasons to terminate them that are technically legal. So, while my hands were tied legally, I made sure those Shio found new jobs with people much more tolerant of their private lives.]_

_ [So there's a dark underbelly to the Shio,]_ Jenn noted soberly.

_[All races have their dark spots, Jenn. For the Shio, it's a cultural intolerance for those who have what they consider to be unnatural sexual appetites.]_

After ordering, they sat around and talked of less important things, mainly baseball. Both Jason and Jenn were baseball fans, and Cybri had become quite the baseball fan herself, following all four main baseball leagues; the Karis Planetary League, both Imperial Leagues, one league of women players and a league of men-only players that had taken root in the Imperium, and Terra's Major League. She had fully embraced _her _baseball team, the Sarsa Waverunners, to the point where she had season tickets behind home plate and a private skybox. It was one of the first things she'd bought with her allowance once she was off her probationary period. It was the Waverunners' inaugural season in the league, and unfortunately for Cybri, the expansion team was being a typical expansion team, with a pretty terrible record and them still trying to find their own system and culture both in the dugout and in the home office. But they had a good owner that was willing to spend money to improve the team, so as soon as they found their identity and got some experience, Jason felt that they'd be just fine.

The fact that Cybri loved baseball made Jason like her that much more.

Shiziki and bachi were also huge on Sarga, thanks to the large Shio population and bachi being the de facto Faey sport, as well as a plethora of other sports played on the semi-pro and fun league level, so the continent had plenty of sports for both residents and visitors to enjoy, either playing them or watching them.

Cybri made sure that their meals were cooked by Merra—requesting a chef by name was not uncommon in a Shio restaurant—and when their meals were put on the table, Jason was impressed. He was even more impressed when he took a bite; the woman was nearly as good a cook as Seido. _[She's good,]_ Jenn complemented. _[Very, very good.]_

_ [Somehow I'm not surprised at all that Seido would find a girlfriend that's a good chef,]_ Jason mused. _[It means they have a lot in common right off the bat.]_

After a very, very good dinner and dessert, Cybri had Merra come out to meet them, another Shio tradition. Jason was a bit surprised at the sight of her, because Merra was a very petite lady. The picture of her he'd seen didn't give him an idea of her height. She was both short and slender, about Dellin's height, but her current appearance matched her bio picture almost exactly. She had a face that made it clear she wasn't a teenager, with very dark hair with greenish undertones and striking violet eyes. Despite being slender, she was blessed with ample feminine curves, both in the hips and the bust, and she was quite pretty. She blanched a little bit at seeing Jason and Cybri, clearly recognizing them, and nearly stammered out her greeting, bowing at the waist. "I—I had no idea I was cooking for _you_, your Grace, Miss Cybri," she blurted, speaking not quite so fluent Faey.

"I like to keep a low profile," Jason chuckled, speaking Shio, as he stood up and shook her hand. "This is Vell, a good friend of mine," he introduced.

"Nice to meet you, Merra," Jenn said in fluent Shio.

"I wanted to compliment you on a wonderful meal in person," he announced, taking her hand. It was warm and surprisingly strong. "But I won't hold you here when others are waiting their chance to sample your cooking."

"Thank you, your Grace. Miss Cybri," she said, bobbing a bit to each of them. "Nice to meet you, Mister Vell."

"It was a pleasure," he smiled.

_[So, you came all this way just for that?]_ Vell asked as she nearly skipped back into the kitchen.

_[Not even. I'll come back after she finishes work so we can have a talk, outside of the earshot of her bosses. When does her shift, end, Cybri?]_

_ [In four hours.]_

_[Jyslin may have something to say about you being out all night, Jayce,]_ Vell smiled as Jason paid the check, as easy as having his gestalt pay the tab, as well as leave a healthy tip for both the server and Merra; tipping the chef was another Shio tradition. And while the restaurant adhered to Shio traditions when it came to menus and whatnot, they were quite progressive when it came to paying the check.

_ [Jyslin won't mind once I tell her why I'm here,]_ Jason replied as they stood up, preparing to leave. The manager took that as his cue to scurry over and gush a bit over them being there, making sure to name-drop Jason to let the entire dining room know that the _Grand Duke himself_ had patronized their establishment. Jason made sure to complement Merra for the quality of the meal before leaving, ensuring that if the management suspected Merra's sexual orientation, they'd be morons if they fired her.

Jason and Vell hung out a bit in Cybri's facility while they waited, then Vell went home using Jason's skimmer as Jason returned to the resort. He had Cybri track down how she got home, and after finding out that she walked, Jason parked a hovercar from Sarsa's motor pool out by the employee's entrance of the restaurant. When she came out at the tail end of the workers, he pinged her interface with a priority message, the kind that would come through whether she had messages on or not. The priority message simply read _Wait there_, and she did so, in a bit of confusion. When the other workers filed towards the parking area or the tram station, Jason pulled the hovercar up and lowered the window. "Your Grace!" she gasped as she looked into the car.

"Let me drive you home," he told her. "There are a few things we need to talk about."

"Uh, yes, yes, your Grace," she said hesitantly, no doubt trying to process how weird the situation was to her. She went around and got into the passenger's side, and the door closed behind her. He lifted the car up and started it in the direction of her apartment, just doing it very, very slowly. The car barely moved at a walking pace. "I'm not going to be coy about why I'm here, Merra," he said. "Seido works for me."

The Shio gasped. "She does?" she exclaimed. "She never said so! She said she works as a chef for the government!"

"She does. She's one of my personal chefs," he told her. "So in a way, she _does_ work for the government. But she doesn't like to brag, so she plays down how important of a job she has. She doesn't know I'm here, and I'd appreciate it if you didn't tell her. She'd probably put rocks in my _mido_ stew if she found out," he said, which made her blurt out a laugh. "So, why I'm here. She came home a day early."

"I know. I thought I did something wrong," she said, her face flushing. "I mean—"

"I know about Seido," he told her calmly. "And the fact that I'm here now should tell you how much I care about that. I made her tell me why she came home a day early, and you're the reason."

"Did I make her mad? She told me she had a family emergency, but I could tell she wasn't telling the truth."

"The opposite. She felt things were going too fast between the two of you, and Seido is a traditionalist when it comes to that kind of thing," he told her, which made her eyes light up a bit and give a sudden nod. "She came home a day early because she was almost afraid of how fast things were moving, then she felt terrible that she sent the wrong signal to you when she did. But, there are a couple of things you need to know about Seido and her life if you want to date her, Merra," he said in a calm voice. "First and foremost, you _will_ have the Imperial Guard look into you," he warned. "Seido is a member of my staff, so she technically falls under the protection of the Imperial Guard. They don't follow her around the way they do me, but they _do_ make sure she's safe. And part and parcel of that is conducting security investigations on those that get personally involved with their charges. So, is there anything in your past that may concern them?"

"No!" she said, almost indignantly.

"Good enough for me," he said with a nod, glancing over at her. "Seido didn't tell you what she does because she doesn't like that kind of attention. If you start dating her, she'll expect you to respect that. So, can you date Seido without telling the world that you're involved with a member of the Grand Duke's personal staff?"

"I wouldn't—I mean, if you know Seido, you know what it's like for us. You know, women like…us," she said, flushing again. "We don't advertise who we are, your Grace. Nothing but bad things come of it."

"Maybe in the Federation, but the House of Karinne has far more progressive sensibilities," he said calmly. "Seido mentioned that you have an aversion to Faey because of their telepathy. But if you date Seido, you're going to be surrounded by them. Is that a problem?"

"It's not entirely the telepathy, it's the Faey," she said. "Faey women are—well, they're _rude_. We have enough telepaths in the Federation that we're used to having them around, and if it bothered me, I sure wouldn't have come here. There's more telepaths on Karis than there are in the entire Federation," she said honestly. "The problem I have is, when a Faey woman wants to ask you out, she doesn't even hide the fact that she's reading your thoughts, where the Faey you meet outside of something like that don't do that. That turns me off a little bit, it's like they don't respect my privacy."

"Faey women aren't exactly known for their subtlety," he agreed with a chuckle. "And I know how you feel. I had some issues with my wife when we first met because she more or less did the same thing to me."

"Really?"

"My own talent wasn't awake yet when I met her, and at that time, Terra had just been annexed by the Imperium and was under the Trillanes, and things were very bad. We Terrans really, really didn't like the Faey back then," he explained. "So I know exactly how it feels to have a pushy, nosy Faey woman trying to get into your head because she's interested in you, and you're almost helpless to stop her."

"So what did you do?"

"I kicked her in the face," he replied casually, which made her gasp, then laugh. Her laugh was quite beautiful. "I'm not joking," he added lightly.

"Seriously? You kicked her in the face?"

"Knocked her out cold," he said proudly, which made her laugh again. "But the silly thing is, that only made her even more determined," he said ruefully. "I shouldn't complain, though. If she hadn't been so damn stubborn, I may have missed out on the best part of my life. So, telepaths don't bother you?"

"Not really," she replied. "The ones here respect your privacy."

"I'm glad to hear that, since _I'm_ a telepath," he said, giving her a look that made her smile a little bit. "So, that's where it stands. In a day or two, Seido's going to call, as soon as she calms down and realizes that she overreacted a tiny bit. I'd appreciate it if you don't hold that against her. Seido is an interesting, complex, intelligent, caring, lovely woman, and she's one of my dearest friends far more than she's my chef."

"I know what you mean. The days I spent with Seido were incredible," she said in a fond voice. "She's charming and witty and so beautiful, and she's an _amazing_ chef. I can believe she's on your staff."

"My house wouldn't be the same without Seido. She lives in the house with us," he told her.

"Ohhhh, that explains why she was vague about her house in Karsa."

He nodded. "She use the roommate excuse?"

She laughed. "No, she said she rented a room with a family."

"Room my butt. She has a pretty big apartment," he corrected. "And I think I'm gonna whack her when I get home for making me sound like I make her live in a closet."

Merra laughed. "She did say she really liked the family. That there were lots of kids and things were always happening and that a day there was never boring."

"That about describes my house," he nodded. "It's pretty chaotic most of the time, but Seido and my house servants, Ayama and Surin, they're about the only ones that can manage that chaos and keep all of us moving in the same direction. We'd be lost without them. That's just one of the ways Seido is so special," he told her in a gentle voice as the car descended, the landed on the pad outside her apartment building. "And here we are," he declared. "It was nice to meet you, Merra," he said as the door opened.

"I'm glad I met you, your Grace. And I think it shows how much you care about Seido that you came all this way to talk to me."

"Seido is family to me, Merra," he confirmed. "And like a typical meddling dad, here I am checking out her prospective girlfriend."

She laughed. "That's very Shio, your Grace."

"Now you know why I get along with the Shio so well," he answered, which made her laugh again and nod. "Just be patient, and Seido will call you. And remember, I wasn't here," he reminded her.

"Okay."

"Hopefully I'll get to _officially_ meet you soon," he said easily. She got out of the car and came around to the driver's side, then shook Jason's hand when he offered it through the window. "Now I'm gonna head home and get ready for tomorrow. I have a ton of work to catch up on. Paperwork…whee," he said blandly, which made her giggle. "You have a good evening."

"Thank you, your Grace."

"I think you've earned the right to call me Jason," he told her, letting go of her hand. "I hope Seido calls you soon."

"Me too. I miss her."

"Just be patient," he assured her. She took a step back, and he picked the hovercar up and turned it back for Sarsa, which was only about 30 kathra north. _[I'm done here, Cybri,]_ he communed with her core crystal. _[Can you get in touch with the command center and have them send someone to pick me up?]_

_ [There's a frigate on picket duty at Joint Base Sigma, Jason. The _Jeluna_. I'll order them to power up so they're ready to go when you arrive.]_

_ [Good deal. Take the car back to the motor pool for me?]_

_ [Certainly. And I think you owe me a longer visit next time.]_

_ [Sounds good to me. When's the next Waverunner home game?]_

_ [Vesta, they're playing the Virsa Wanderers. It's a day-night double header,]_ she communed enticingly.

_ [Then I'll bring Rann, Danelle, and Aran and we'll make a day out of it,]_ he promised. They were his kids who most liked baseball. _[No doubt Shya will tag along, too.]_

_ [I'd be happy to see them.]_


End file.
